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Saturday, 8 May 2010

We've been copying: Austin Kleon

*Copy*Austin Kleon is a writer, cartoonist and designer who is probably best known for creating poetry by blacking-out pages from a newspaper leaving behind only the words which form a poem. If I've made that sound entirely confusing then his short video should explain it far more succinctly!

All clear now? Good! The book of Austin's blackout poetry has recently been released which you can read more about here.

Wewere intrigued by its [deceptive] simplicity which creates striking contrasts and a vivid focus on words and meaning and we thought that it'd be fun to try it ourselves!

*Paste*

Julie's Blackout Poetry: [you can click on the photos for a closer look]

'History'

'Hero-Worship'

'Unsettled'

Kirsty's Blackout Poetry:

(In which I use a magazine page, rather than newspapers and, too late, realise the two columns may cause confusion.) [click on the photo for a closer look]

'Organised'

Why not give it a go? All you need is a page from a newspaper, a pencil and a black marker pen. it doesn't even mater what the topic of the newpaper page is ... I did my first experiments on a bra advertisement!

Go on ... grab a pen and uncover some poetry ...now! Then come back and share your discoveries with us all here.

5 comments:

Or I could just tell you that the text reads 'I keep crackers, a snapshot of my son and small bowls in the basement. Things misplaced always find the dark. The key to getting organized is never someone else.'

Great little poem, Kirsty! I remember doing this exercise at art college. I really enjoyed it - wonder why I've never done it since! Time I started that Art Journal I've been thinking of - this would make a great first project for it!

Happy Blog Birthday by the way. Glad to have found your blog (courtesy of Claire - http://curlylockspicsandpieces.blogspot.com/). I like your scrapping/crafting stuff, so will enjoy following you for the next Blog year and beyond!

Our etsy stores

*the copy and pasters*

*ctrl+c and ctrl+v*

Being creative and original doesn't always have to begin with re-invented wheels, clean slates and blank pages.

*COPY*:There's a world of perfectly ingenious mind-stirring quotations, lyrics, conversations, designs, photographs, bits, pieces and miscellaneous bobs out there ... and we like to find them and share them with you.

*PASTE*: Sometimes we take from these 'found' gems and make something satisfyingly new from paper, paint, pixels, fineliners, fabric, fluff, glue, crayon, words ... mime ... OK, maybe not mime. And sometimes we just look at them and take in their fabulousness.

We'd love it if you picked up your creative-tool-of-choice and do some copying and pasting alongside us, and we'd be jsut as happy if you dropped by to read and look at the work of some great artists and creative people.We'd be happier still if you'd bring a friend with you... and some refreshments.